Abstract:

Teaching is a multidimensional concept: how measuring teacher quality is nevertheless a complicated task and many authors stress the advantages of collecting teacher self-reported evaluations. In 2016 a network of seven Italian Universities developed an innovative «bottom-up» initiative (the AsdUni project), with the goal of establishing a national systemic approach to educational development, to analyse teachers’ beliefs, practices and needs.

Within this project, a questionnaire was developed and administered (through a CAWI survey) to all academics belonging to the universities of the network; the instrument closed with three open-ended questions aimed at exploring:
i) the excellence and innovation in teaching activity;
ii) the critical aspects encountered in daily practices;
iii) the type of support perceived as necessary to enhance teaching and learning.

The study collected 4,289 interviews (an overall response rate of about 59%, with a range by university of 46%-74%). However, only 3,250 teachers provided useful answers to the open-ended questions (1,039 teachers reported very general comments, often unrelated to the investigated dimensions). Even if the sample is prevalently composed by men (56.3%), women were more likely to answer than men and a clear negative gradient by age appeared (the younger, the higher response rate). More than 60% of assistant professors and professors with temporary positions responded, while associate and full professors participated to a lesser extent.

Exploiting the richness of qualitative information collected within this project and the use of advanced statistical solutions (such as the Latent Class Analysis), ten clusters of teachers were identified: these classes are inside homogeneous, according to the different combinations of teaching excellences, criticisms and needs, and outside heterogenous (in different ways). The largest class comprises less than 18% of teachers, while the smallest is close to 4%. In line with the sample composition, all classes but one are prevalently composed by men. Only one class is characterised by people with a very low probability of reporting innovative practices in the teaching activity. Therefore, clusters mainly differentiated each other because of the different role played by contextual elements in the requested support and criticalities.

The novelty of this work is the application of a quantitative approach to analyse qualitative data on teacher practices: findings may provide strategic policy recommendations to set up a framework for fostering, recognising and rewarding excellent practice in teaching and learning in higher education. Moreover, this kind of statistical solution has been so far rarely adopted to study teachers’ opinions.

Staff development programs might benefit of findings provided by this work, because specific multi-level action plans (tailored on the real needs of these teachers) can be designed, taking into account three different stages: institutional, where each university can offer adequate strategies to support academics’ development; inter-institutional, in which universities can create joint initiatives and peer support, and national level, where institutions can align their practices towards a systemic approach of Italian academic development.

Keywords:

Faculty development, latent class analysis, qualitative research, university.